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Austin Walker and Patrick Klepek interview Sean Murray on the No Man's Sky launch, following harassment, crunch, cut features, how they've spent the last two years improving the game, and what comes next. Brian Crimmin's essay on the imagined importance of the blockbuster game, Gita Jackson reports on the 2018 Game Devs of Color Expo, Matt Bertz interviews longtime Bioware employee James Ohlen on his decision to leave the company and what comes next, Ruben Ferdinand on Metal Gear Solid's focus on masculinity that overlaps with the war fiction of the 80s and homoerotica, new video of upcoming Tomb Raider and Walking Dead Final Season, Caty McCarthy starts a series of articles on the evolution of game writing, MML's Commentaries' video Danganronpa Is Its Plot A Series Ludonarrative Analysis, and more.

The critically acclaimed and highly anticipated cRPG Pathfinder: Kingmaker will be released digitally and in selected retail outlets on PC September 25, 2018. Aspiring adventurers - just like you - can now preorder from an exciting and diverse range of Pathfinder: Kingmaker digital versions right here:

There's nine minutes of brand new Shadow of the Tomb Raider gameplay knocking about the internet, and as gorgeous as the undiscovered city of Paititi looks, one of the most interesting things to emerge is the news that you'll be able to tune difficulty separately in different parts of the game.

The monsters are sleeping. They stand around in dark corners, obscured by a thick dust that hangs in the air. Our squad creeps through the doorway, crouching and tense and heavily armed. Then: a single gunshot. The monsters are awake. They scream, they run at us, they flail and strike with fleshy, twisted limbs, and call out for more of their brothers (sisters?) who come scampering through the cavern toward the noise and gunfire that follows. Eventually, the squad fights them all off, things calm down, the last of the fleshy creatures is killed. All right, asks one of the team playing GTFO with me. Who fired that shot?

Clementine has been through a lot over the course of Telltale’s The Walking Dead series, and things aren’t about to get any easier in the last season of her adventure. Telltale has posted a new teaser for The Walking Dead: The Final Season that provides some opening drama and scene setting, as well as an extended look at the series’ updated art style.

With all the drama of trade demands, free agency surprises, and draft reaches, the NBA is rarely out of the headlines during the offseason. The same goes for the NBA 2K series. Seemingly every day, passionate fans still debate the perceived failures of the last edition, add ideas to hopeful wish lists, and survey social media for locker codes that unlock highly coveted MyTeam cards. Now it’s time to turn our gaze to the series' next entry.

Mexican wrestling Metroidvania Guacamelee 2 finally has a release date, and it’s coming very soon. The indie sequel will take you - and possibly some friends - back into a colourful world of 2D luchadores when it hits PC (along with PlayStation 4) on August 21.

In We. The Revolution, players are invited to explore the French Revolution from an unlikely position of power. As a judge on the Revolutionary Tribunal, you will preside over life-and-death cases ripped from the pages of history. Polygon was given access to a small preview version of the game, and while the art style is unique and impressive, the gameplay itself leaves much to be desired.

During the panel, Capcom said that they consider Resident Evil 2 a new title more than a remake, which allowed them to tear everything down and rebuild it the best way they possibly could. They wanted to design Leon before he became the dorky but cool action star of Resident Evil 4 and isn't quite a hero yet, but still went through multiple designs before landing on his current form to get it perfect. They also took this opportunity to brag about the Resident Evil engine's photogrammetry technology, being employed in Resident Evil 7, Devil May Cry 5, and this game. Real-life versions of Claire and Leon's outfits were scanned in to give them the most realistic look.

Firaxis has a new game on the way, and it sounds like it’ll break from the developer’s usual rhythm of XCOM and Civilization releases. 2K Games is looking to expand the offerings provided by its premier strategy studio, and they want to do it by adding a third pillar to the developer’s regular offerings.

Greg Kythreotis and Daniel Fineberg make up Shedworks, a game development studio with four years experience in the industry. They’re both self-taught and, as the name suggests, they conduct their work out of Greg’s parents’ shed in North London.

Magic, vampires, and frogs are among the mysteries, dangers, and opportunities for pashing added to Reigns: Her Majesty in a free expansion yesterday. The ‘Transformation Update’ has brought 200 new cards to the reginal RPG, which draw in three new characters and potentially lead to five new deaths. The game’s on sale to celebrate the launch too. And if frenching a frog gets me killed, so it goes.

I bought Slay The Spire sometime in 2017 and against all my expectations it remains one of the most commonly opened games in my Steam library. It’s a roguelike, and a deckbuilder, and thus has a lot of hypothetical playtime in its rather simple base conceit, but it’s still incredible to me how the addition of a new, third character to the game’s loadouts has reinvigorated my love for the humble dungeon crawler.

Creative Assembly today announced Total War: Rome 2‘s next expansion – Rise Of The Republic. A prequel campaign set 127 years before Rome 2’s campaign, it promises a more focused game of grand ambition as nine playable factions set their eyes on a detailed, zoomed-in map of Italy. In the real world this era of conflict led to the Second Founding of Rome, but with Gallic tribes and Syracuse playable, the history books seem due for a rewrite on August 9th.

The Rainbow Six Siege ban wave is on the way today, targeting players that have been boosted by cheaters. This follows up on the plans Ubisoft detailed for anti-cheat efforts earlier this month, with an initial ban targeting 600 players worldwide. That ban was scheduled for July 16, but was delayed and now lines up with the game’s latest update.

Overwatch‘s diminutive Swedish engineer Torbjörn is set to get a few whacks from Blizzard’s tuning wrench. Similar to Symmetra’s massive rework recently, Overwatch lead designer Geoff Goodman told VG247 of tentative plans to rebuild the stubborn Swede into a more aggressive character capable of deploying self-upgrading turrets on the go. It also seems likely that his ultimate ability – Molten Core – is to be replaced entirely.

Over 60,000 Steam accounts were banned by Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) on Tuesday, July 17, marking the largest VAC wave in the platform’s history. But it was on Wednesday morning that the banhammer really started swinging,, with 28,411 accounts being banned throughout the day.

Driveclub and OnRush director Paul "Rushy" Rustchynsky - the face of both games and of the studio itself - is among those let go, multiple sources close to the studio have confirmed to Eurogamer, alongside other senior members of the team.

An Uber driver and in real life (IRL) streamer caught live-streaming passengers, sometimes inadvertently disclosing their full names and residential neighborhoods, is at the center of a resurfaced discussion over ethical streaming.

Being at the Game Devs of Color Expo feels different than being at other gaming conventions. It’s looser, less focused on networking. When you talk to developers about their games, they’re less interested in making a pitch than wanting to know how you feel. It’s also looks different. White people are the minority. Here, the rooms are full of black and brown people who are making games. Omar Dabbous, audio engineer on Boyfriend Dungeon, was at the con and sounded pleasantly surprised as he said, “This is probably the most diverse group of game devs I’ve ever seen.”

Game Informer's Andy McNamara, Andrew Reiner, Ben Hanson, and Kyle Hilliard break down their favorite arcade games of all time. Then the co-founder of the barcade Up-Down, Josh Ivey, calls in to talk about what it's like to run such an establishment in 2018. After some great community emails, we're joined by Bumblebear's Nik Mikros and Josh DeBonis and Liquid Bit's Matt Tesch to talk about the origins of the arcade phenomenon Killer Queen and the upcoming version launching on the Nintendo Switch Killer Queen Black.

GOG is a distributor of DRM-free PC games, including classics and now modern computer titles. But what about good old console games? It might be a complicated process for games from other platforms to come to GOG, but it sounds like it’s far more of a legal problem than a technical one.

We’re a couple days late to this party, which probably ensures our exile from the speedrunning community. This Saturday, the summer’s other major charity speedrun marathon began streaming on Twitch. No, not Games Done Quick, but the lesser-known (though no less impressive in scale) European Speedrunner Assembly – ESA, for short.

Hiroshi Kajimyama’s son has revealed via Twitter that he’s father has passed away. The son didn’t give any details on when he passed away, what the causes or any other information. This is all probably a close family matter and I respect that.

Last night, something went terribly wrong with Overwatch’s best team. It became apparent early on in a match, when Do-hyeon “Pine” Kim, New York Excelsior’s unstoppable, sawed-off shotgun, switched off the sniper hero who made him famous and onto Doomfist, a character notorious for being high-risk but high-reward. This time, there was no reward.

The Escape Champions League is a brand new competitive tournament for the iconic '90s RTS Age of Empires II, organised by AoE community legend ZeroEmpires. Eight teams will compete across seven different stages throughout the course of a whole year, scoring points as they go, with the top two teams advancing to an offline Grand Final.

Organizers of Super Smash Bros. tournaments have created a working panel to create a more welcoming, less hostile environment. But the initiative, which is designed to diminish toxic behavior and harassment at live events, is running into unexpected roadblocks.

Fortnite’s Summer Skirmish is an invite-only esports event that boasts over $8 million in total prize payout across the summer. A winner from Friday’s tournament has been accused of cheating, and developer Epic has come to the player’s defense.

It looks like esports might be taking another step in the direction of gaining recognition from a wider audience. Following in the wake of the announcement that Overwatch League would be televised on ESPN, today brings news that Geguri from the Shanghai Dragons and JAKE from the Houston Outlaws were journeying to Switzerland to take part in the Esports Forum. Mark Rein, president of Epic, and Mike Morhaime, co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment, are also in attendance.

Kingdoms of the Dump is a SNES-style RPG with platforming elements and turn-based combat developed by the New Jersey-based Roach Games. It is currently in production for PC and Mac, but a console release is also possible if the game’s upcoming Kickstarter campaign succeeds.

By successfully convincing video game writing of its automatic importance and making the former dependent on its existence, the blockbuster circumvents any need to justify its own existence. Safe from reproach, it laughs at any form of game lesser than itself for daring to think it has value. Only the blockbuster is deserving of any real attention, regardless of what it does to warrant that attention. “Behold!”, it announces to all it has forced to listen. “The nothing I proclaim is more important than anything you will ever say. My easily predicted failures will always be more deserving of discussion than the greatest success you could possibly muster.”

INSIDE THE WRITING IN GAMES | From League of Legends to Tomb Raider, we dive into how games writing has evolved in the modern age and the people behind it.

This is Part One of a three-part series exploring writers across video games. Since the start of the year, we've spoken to over a dozen writers of varied disciplines to learn the ins and outs of what it's like to write for video games in the modern era.

Earlier this month, 22-year BioWare veteran James Ohlen announced his departure from the famed RPG studio. After decades of making renowned games like Baldur's Gate, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and Star Wars: The Old Republic, Ohlen wants to step away from game development for a while.

Akabur, one of the true frontiersman of porn games, is finally cashing in. His two most popular erotic games, Princess Trainer and Witch Trainer, remain free for anyone to download on his website, but the public is paying him over $5,000 a month to facilitate his work.

In the early 90s, two queer people in the Mission District of San Francisco made games about queer experiences. One was a fantasy role-playing game populated by gay characters, the other a lesbian adventure game. These two developers would never meet. It’s only now, through archival projects like LGBTQ Game Archive, that queer scholars have begun to piece together this history.

Seven years ago, at Crystal Dynamics, I was given the opportunity to lead the stealth gameplay effort in the Tomb Raider 2013 reboot. Stealth was an area I had light level design experience in from The Bourne Conspiracy but Tomb Raider was a much more complex game. With help from a great Game Director, I was able to learn on the fly and deliver a working stealth mechanic and level design philosophy that was successfully applied across the game.

Overwatch’s roster is a bizarre band of misfits. Instead of playing as your typical shooter protagonist, here you can become a cyborg ninja, a scientist gorilla, and a teleporting goth. But one question has always been at the forefront of the minds of those creating the game: how far can we push it?

What Metal Gear Solid presents is a type of masculinity that overlaps with war fiction of the 80s and the visual tensions of gay porn. Kojima idolises the soldier, not the state, and means to recreate this through a politically complicated series where soldiers defect to fight the state itself. It cannot, and refuses to, escape the confines of military thinking: struggle and violence is the only way to ‘becoming’, and there is no end to this path. It reflects the boot camp mentality of purging, but sees male intimacy as a reinforcement, rather than a toxin.

The Metal Gear Solid franchise has always played with repetition and recreation in weird ways. Whether it’s the VR missions simulating the Shadow Moses events of Metal Gear Solid, the real-life simulation that is Metal Gear Solid 2, and the repeated character types and individual characters who just keep managing to show up. All of this is couched in pseudo-philosophical debates about what it means to repeat the past. Is it in our genes? Can we truly swerve from the past to create something new? What is handed down to us? What do we make ourselves?

Recently I had a chance to go back to Resident Evil Remake. This was Capcom rebuilding the original game for the GameCube back in 2002. This version turned out to be one of the best games in the Resident Evil franchise thanks to a new layout and design.

Ubisoft’s latest entry in the Assassin’s Creed series, Origins, takes you on a journey through Lower Egypt (the downloadable content also takes you on a journey through Upper Egypt). The traditional capital, Memphis, can be visited somewhat later in the game, but you’ll discover the Greek one, Alexandria, shortly after leaving the tutorial area. It rises like a marble mirage as you crest the Qattara Depression’s desert dunes.

All of this is great, and builds up to a final showdown about halfway through the game between William and his father. It should be a defining, singular moment of staring down the darkness in the world, and striving for something better, just like the concentration camp level in The New Order.

In 1925 the British explorer Percy Fawcett and his expedition team set off from the Brazilian city of Cuiabá in search of the Lost City of Z, which Fawcett was sure lay hidden in the depths of the Amazon rainforest. It was the culmination of years of obsession for Fawcett, who had come to believe in the existence of an advanced lost civilisation based on sketchy travellers' tales and a mysterious idol given to him some years earlier by the pulp author H. Rider Haggard and said to be from the region.

The road to video game hellIf the games we play are anything to go by, the depths of hell are one of humankind's favourite destinations when it comes to travels of the mind. Few fantasy RPGs or horror games could be considered complete without at least a quick excursion into the domain of demons and sinners. And what better place to conclude your game than hell itself? What better villains to fight than the citizens of Pandemonium? Hell has found a steady home in many kinds of games, and its popularity shows no sign of abating.

“It’s not something the teams will come to you about. A coach or GM won’t say [anything], but trainers do,” the agent said. “Teams with really young players complained all year about guys not sleeping. It used to be chalked up to them partying and all that, but now it’s because of them playing video games all night.”

“I haven’t really talked much with guys about it,” one NBA executive said. “I’m not really concerned, but I probably should be since I’m sure they’re staying up late as hell playing.”

It's time for a class trial: we're taking Danganronpa's narrative and interactive design to the courtroom. Let's talk about meaningless choices and how they can potentially ruin a story.

By the way, if you haven't played the Danganronpa visual novel trilogy and are interested in checking them out, you may wanna stay away from this one. Don't scroll down to the comments, either: there may be some spoilers down there. But please come back when you're finished!

Balancing games is difficult. Really difficult. To make things worse, we don't understand a lot of the thought that goes into making games interesting to play and replay.

Who better to tell you all about balance than world renowned Wrong About Videogames Person, The Architect? It turns out, the best way to balance a game, might not be to make it completely balanced to begin with.

Archipel uploaded the latest of their video interview series with Japaense talents, and it features longtime Atlus illustrator and graphic designer Shigenori Soejima who talked Catherine and more of his work and inspiration.

In this video I take a look at the overall tone that gets set throughout (most of) the Super Smash Bros. series' music. There are a LOT of similarities between the music of Melee, SSB4, and the new Super Smash Bros. Ultimate theme, and some interesting differences between these games and the music of the original Super Smash Bros. and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. So, I thought I'd explore that a little bit.

Myst should need no introduction. It’s a puzzle-heavy, non-violent graphic adventure with a slick visual style and the simplest interface known to humankind. You, the player, are a genderless, unnamed interloper on a surreal island, a world that seems almost to have emerged from a madman’s mind. Things get weirder from here: alternate dimensions; magical books with people trapped inside; and an increasingly sinister plot. This project proceeded to sell more than 6 million copies — the highest sales of any computer game until The Sims.²